Friday, April 29, 2011

I am not one for hyping products or services, unless it is a superb deal!

I have now been a stock footage artist with Pond5.com for several years. I have to say, these guys have pulled off what was most likely the most challenging feat in the industry, ever. They have now surpassed all stock footage agencies in volume and size bar none! They are the largest!

As recently as a few weeks ago, Pond5 introduced stock photos to their arsenal. Prior to that, After Effects projects. Before that, music and sound FX. And this all started simply as a stock footage agency. They now have the complete realm of goods needed for just about any production you can think of. They are now the "World's Media Marketplace". Did I mention, they are the largest?

They are the proof that if as a business you treat your vendors, in this case artists, fairly, and you take care of the customer - you can't lose! Such a simple concept that so many companies tend to overlook once they grow. These guys however stay humble. They don't care about ego or anything else that could be detrimental to the company. All they care about is delivering the largest selection of multimedia goods to the world. Oh, and they also like beer.

So why would I bring up the beer. You see over many many years I have seen just about every marketing gimmick at a variety of trade shows. From magicians to "booth babes" - they all try to get your attention. The reality of any trade show, as an attendee is two things that you care or even think about: Your feet are killing you, and you are always dying of thirst. Well the Pond5 boys got it half way right. They supplied the beer in their booth every afternoon when people were really ready for one. Maybe, just maybe, next year they will have a bunch of chaise lounge chairs handy so the we can come over and take a nap after that beer. You know, so that we can rest our feet. :)

So without further delay, and for those of you that don't know, or have never heard of Pond5, here is a little message from Dana Tower of Pond5.com:

Thursday, April 21, 2011

So the 20th Annual Arizona International Film Festival ended last night with a bang! One of our own, a Tucson local, gets the award for "Best of Arizona" and was the final screening at the screening room.

The film, "the avenue" does an absolutely fantastic and humorous job at showing how our own 4th Avenue here in Tucson has been able to survive that nasty corporate America thing that happens not only to historical districts all over the US, but even in the smallest urban areas. What I am talking about is when corporate steps in and ruins a place where people used to love hanging out because it was pure "Americana" and easy going. I saw this happen in Huntington Beach, CA on main street by the beach back in the late 80's. It really sucked. The whole character of the "old Beach Boys atmosphere" died and became overly commercialized.

Of course if you were to ask our Mayor, well, that's another story and well depicted in the film. In a nutshell, some people really are out of touch with reality. But I digress. Thanks to all the wonderful owners, vendors and people - it seems as though 4th Avenue will survive this type of takeover. At least for now. And after all, there is one corporate "friend" that has also stood by the 4th Avenue cause - Dairy Queen. :) Now I want some ice cream dang it!

So there I was shooting for 12 hours at the Long Beach Grand Prix in California last Friday when I got a unique phone call. A friend of mine out of the blue called and asked if I wanted to be DP for a potential new show. At first I thought, he is pulling my leg as a birthday joke. But this was not the case. It actually is turning and moving very quickly into something pretty darn real. How do I know this? Well, assuming all goes well, I will once again be hitting the road next Tuesday to start this new project. So I ended up filming a race car driver a.k.a. the "Steering Wheel Guy" on Saturday in the OC of CA, drove back Sunday early, shot some stuff on the way too.. got back to Tucson about 2:30pm, took a quick power nap and then off into the editing bay. Here is the preview of what's to come and what we will be doing for the next couple of weeks.. Talk about "run and gun".

If all goes well, we will be putting up "dailies" and blogging about the whole event as we go. So stay tuned. :)

Update 04/22/11 - 6:00pm: It' ain't happening! At least my part. The sponsor decided to NOT go ahead with the project. I wish I would have known that sooner, then I would have enjoyed shooting stock at the beach instead of wasting time on this. I suppose the upside is I did make a pretty cool friendship with Ed Dellis. So it wasn't all a loss. :)
Update 04/25/11 - 8:00am: It may yet still happen. Sports marketing - go figure. :)
Update 04/25/11 - 2:00pm: It isn't going to happen. This leads to what will be a whole new blog entry about sports marketing, or should I say marketing in general.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Quite a while ago I posted about my DIY rig to "fly" my camera as well as stabilize while flying. A good friend of mine snapped some shots of me while doing the "flying" at the April Fools Fest at the Sculpture Resource Center in Tucson, AZ. I was "flying" my Canon T2i along with a Audio Technica shotgun mic covered with a nice "dead cat". Someone once asked me how difficult it was to get that "dead cat". I told them; "I don't really know. I never killed a cat."

So here are a few shots of yours truly shooting with my modified aluminum rim, or simply a bicycle wheel extremely modified for my purpose. But hey it works...

Monday, April 4, 2011

UPDATE: You can see this movie again as it is being screened for a second time on Sunday, April 10, 6:30pm at The Screening Room in Tucson, AZ - woohoo!

So this last Saturday I went to go have a look at a film that was made right here in Tucson, by a resident native of Tucson , Jon Proudstar, that featured several of my friends as everything from cast to crew. In simple words: It was a real delight! Now I could sit here and talk about the film itself, but that is not the point of this writing. I will not review the film, but more the idea that such a film can be made, by an independent and for less than 3K, as in 3 grand as in bucks! This should really be encouraging for many of you independent filmmakers out there.

The point is quite simple. I was more entertained by this indie than I have been by many multi-million dollar flicks. It's that simple!

It just goes to show that there are plenty of opportunities for anyone that is serious about creating a masterpiece. You just need to make use of the some of the resources available. The resources are not always about money, but even more so about people. This may sound a bit biased as I am now a board member of this organization, but IFASA (Independent Film Association of Southern Arizona) (clicking on the link will open a new window for you.) offers up just about anything and everything you could be looking for when it comes to productions. From people with various knowledge and expertise, to ideas and collaborators on your next project.

And if you work hard, stay tuned, be diligent, be persistent and most of all be creative, even you could end up have an entry in a film fest such as the 20th Annual Arizona International Film Festival. (clicking on the link will open a new window for you.) But don't take my word for it, take it from someone like Jon that has now done it:

Search This Blog

Pages

About Me

I have an insatiable appetite to be as creative as possible as often as possible. I love coming up with new ideas in business, photography, videography and art. Weird combination, I know. But that is what we recovering programmers are like.